


Umbras Super Murum

by KuraiTsuky



Series: DEMONICORVM [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Dark Fantasy, Gothic, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Other, Paranoia, Paranormal, Psychological Horror, Shadow people, Stalking, alternative universe, first attempt at horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:30:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KuraiTsuky/pseuds/KuraiTsuky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a shadow on the wall, from beneath the covers he can see it move, but whenever he turns to look, it’s gone.  It’s going to drive him crazy...</p><p>Set in the same universe as Verbum Diaboli.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Umbras Super Murum

**Author's Note:**

> A little thing I conjured up for Halloween.  
> It's almost midnight where I live so here it goes. 
> 
> The title means 'Shadows on the Wall'
> 
> Happy Halloween everyone!

# Umbras Super Murum

 

 

There’s a shadow on the wall, from beneath the covers he can see it move, but whenever he turns to look, it’s gone.  It’s going to drive him crazy. Night after night he goes to sleep begrudgingly, afraid of that shadow on the wall that never is.

 

There is a dark man looking at him, he looks up to make eye contact but the dark man has vanished. He thinks he might be losing his mind. He desperately wants to tell someone about the dark man that observes him, but he fears they might want to confine him to the nut house if he does.

The dark man follows him around all day, he’d go home but he’s terrified of the shadow that lives on his wall.

 

Tonight is different than the other nights. Tonight the shadow stays even when he looks. Black vapor coiling over itself, looking right back at him. He wants to say, see? See how it was more than my imagination? But there is no one there to listen to him and he’s too afraid to speak. His teeth chatter when the shadow moves for the bed where he curls covered in cold sweat. It goes over the covers, dragging its body over the rough wool, slowly creeping towards him.

A horrified scream is frozen in his throat. He closes his eyes, tears prickling at their corners, the heavy sound of his breathing the only sound in the room, resonating as if a thousand people were there breathing with him. It’s suffocating, that noise, filling his ears like static and making him feel dizzy despite being lying down.

When he finally finds the strength to open his eyes, the shadow is gone. He tries to convince himself that it was all an illusion, a trick his mind was playing on him. It would have worked if the covers weren’t inhumanly cold where it’s ghostly body leaned in.

 

The dark man follows him around again, not even the scorching sun seems to deter his advance. This time, he stays, like the shadow, always in the corner of his eye and seemingly unnoticed by everybody else.

 

This night he lights a few candles on his room, enough to make it bright as day and at last lies down feeling he can sleep without fear. He wakes up in the middle of the night. All the candles have been blown out except one. He looks around for the matches but he sees the shadow, bundled up in a corner on the side, looking back. The last candle flicks when their eyes meet. Then the shadow grows, it’s spindly, smoky limbs filling out. The candle flicks one last time and dies and the shadow grows even more encompassing the whole room. Two arms shoot after him and this time the scream doesn’t stay frozen. He manages the courage to jump out of the bed and run. He looks behind as he runs but the shadow stays in the room, simply watching him succumbing to the madness.

 

The dark man is closer today, almost glued to his feet but the makes no sound at all. There is a sweet smell about him, he doesn’t recognize it at first but then he realizes it’s the same smell held by the scented candles he lighted last night. The fact makes his blood run cold and he runs for home. Only when he enters he remembers the shadow. Before it can appear, he jumps to the liquor cabinet. He drinks one glass of whiskey after the other, like a man possessed. When his knees weaken he falls on the armchair like a sack of potatoes and falls asleep with his clothes still on.

 

He dreams he’s floating, his vision is blurred, due no doubt to the alcohol. He can see a door, maybe, in front of him, it’s dark on the other side, and he’s afraid. He holds on to the front of a tattered cloak and he realizes he’s not floating, someone is carrying him. Whoever it is, doesn’t listen to his pleas and keeps moving towards the door and the blackness behind it. It is just his room, he laughs when he notices.

But then, he realizes, there is no one else at home with him. No one but the shadow.

With his eyes opened beyond what he thought was possible, he forces his face to turn upwards and finds himself looking into the chilling, formless face of the shadow. He tries to scream, but the darkness encompasses him, almost cradling, cold, impossibly cold and heartless and he starts to fall asleep again, against his will.

As he closes his eyes, he can see the shadow swallowing him.

 

He wakes up tucked in bed, feeling sticky and disgusting. He doesn’t stop to bath though, he barely even dresses. The idea popped up in mind at some point and it feels like he’s just remembering rather than imagining it for the first time. He runs for the paint store and comes back home with buckets of white paint. So absorbed is he with this idea he doesn’t notice that the dark man is nowhere to be seen today.

He paints his room white, all of it; he strips it of furniture and covers it in paint. Then he moves all his candelabra into it and grabs his stack of candles, rationalizing that surely this many cannot be extinguished.

He’s ready for the night.

 

He wakes up disoriented and stiff, for a moment he doesn’t know where he is. The room he’s in is white. Why is everything white? He thinks, then he remembers this afternoon and the uncontrolled beatings of his heart calm down. The candles around him are still burning. So much light should be unbearable but for him it’s actually relaxing, at last, he can sleep without fear.

He hears something then, a rustle, from the street perhaps he thinks. He opens an eye lazily, and then he sees it. A dark point on the corner, a shadow growing.

He curls against the wall, and realizes it is moist, tearing his eyes away from the ever-growing shadow he looks behind and realizes it is not white paint what he’s leaning against, this thing, this red liquid that is dripping… It can’t be. He closes his eyes and hugs his knees rocking, trembling, a cold, dead hang picks up his faces forcing him to look. From where he’s frozen he can only assist impotent to the spectacle.

The rest of the shadow, connected to that arm, unbearably strong, uncoils forming a vague vaporous shape. The shape of a man.

A distant part of his brain recognizes that man, his black tormentor.

There is an emptiness where its face should be, but he can feel its eyes locking with his own, promising. The shadow moves and the light burns out, the blood that has reached the ceiling rains down on him as it writhes closer and closer. There is no escape, his back against the wall and he screams and screams and screams.

**Author's Note:**

> So, what did you think of my first attempt at horror?


End file.
